Lucinda Williams’ seventh studio album, World Without Tears, is my #8 album of 2003. This record was Williams’ follow-up to 2001’s plaintive Essence, and it finds her in a very different mood.
Much of World Without Tears is relentlessly bleak, touching on sexual abuse, drug addiction, domestic violence and historical atrocities. Fun!
Musically, it veers between haunting ballads and ripsnorting rockers, and Williams proves equally adept at both.
This is a tough album, but a rewarding one, the kind of record that gives shape and nuance to an extraordinary career moving into its fifth decade.
You’re a mystery
I heard a rumor
You’re making history
Photographic dialogues
Beneath your skin
Pornographic episodes
Screaming sin
‘Til it’s real live bleeding fingers
Broken guitar strings
You are my Prince Charming
Draped in velvet robes
Of all that’s alarming
Raw and exposed
Shattered nerves
Itchy skin
Dirty words
And heroin
Better real live bleeding fingers
Broken guitar strings
I climbed all the way inside
Your tragedy
I got behind
The majesty
Of the different shapes
In every note
The endless tapes
Of every word you wrote
With real live bleeding fingers
Broken guitar strings
Meet Me In Montauk 
I hear some Rolling Stones influence in this song. That is, at least for me, a mixed compliment and criticism.